JAN ^3 1898 



'■*, 



^ of Cong 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap.. .^.../Copyright No.. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



HOW THEY ENTERED THE 
HARBOR 

*AND STORIES OF THE STORM 

PART I. 

Entering the Harbor of the Peace of God ; or stories of 
the struggle with unbelief and the triumphs of faith and 
prayer in Christian Conversion. 

PART II. 
The Gleaner among fellow-voyagers, with introductory 
stories for each department. 



DESIGNED AND EDITED BY 

REV. A. C. FERGUSON 




NEW YORK 
A. D. F RANDOLPH COMPANY 

103 Fifth Avenue 






Copyright, i8qj, 
By The A. D. F. RANDOLPH COMPANY. 



Lc Control Number 




tmp96 027736 



AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 

TO THE 

YOUNG PEOPLE OF AMERICA, WHO 

FIND THE SERVICE OF 

THEIR JOY AND HIS LOVE 
THEIR DELIGHT. 



PREFACE. 

r I A HE somewhat lengthy introduc- 
tion for this little book seems an 
absolute necessity to properly explain 
and emphasize its plan, purpose and 
mission. Without doubt all true Chris- 
tians recognize and appreciate the ad- 
vantages derived from communicating 
to one another incidents of Christian 
experience, either in private or public 
meetings. Such incidents may be 
cheering, helpful and profitable by the 
witnessing of hearts together for the 
truth as it is in Jesus. Thus events 



6 Preface, 

which led to conversion, faith-vic- 
tories over deep trials, finding joy in 
sorrow, a sweet draught from a bitter 
cup, answers to prayer, fulfilment of 
divine promises, special providences, 
joyous interviews with Jesus, times of 
rapturous love for Him, and His abid- 
ing presence are profitable to record 
and to communicate to others. The 
blessings thus imparted have been 
prized by myriads of hearts through- 
out the ages. 

God's servants in ancient times 
erected memorial stones or altars 
in commemoration of special divine 
blessings, which were valuable as 
beacon lights in life's memories. At 



Preface. 7 

a later day, the recorded experiences 
of the Apostles became the sources of 
deep inspiration to faith, devotion and 
service. 

The record of our Lord's earthly 
ministry is largely composed of ac- 
counts of His meetings with and ser- 
vice for individuals. He sometimes 
taught in the synagogue by the sea or 
mountain side, but the most joyous 
communion and rapturous experiences 
were enjoyed in personal interviews 
aside from the curious crowd. So to- 
day He goes with us in the shop, 
the store, the factory, the counting- 
house, the street and home, giving 
strength and whispering love and 



8 Preface. 

good cheer to every trusting, praying 
soul. It should be our privilege and 
pleasure like those who saw His face 
and clasped his hands, to record some 
specially blessed experiences with 
Him. There are some things we may 
consistently keep and ponder over 
within our hearts alone, as did His 
blessed mother after the angelic an- 
nunciation. We may not have angelic 
greetings, but experiences almost kin- 
dred to such interviews. 

It is true in spiritual things, as in 
the natural relations of life, that the 
heart may have experiences within the 
realm of love, joy and sorrow, too 
sacred for mention, even to intimate 



Preface. 9 

friends. As in natural relations, the 
more pure and noble the soul, the 
more judiciously will that soul guard 
the Holy of holies where many of the 
deepest, sweetest, most joyous or sor- 
rowful experiences have lighted up, or 
clouded its altars. I grant that this 
maybe emphatically true of one's rela- 
tion to Christ in many experiences of 
mercy and grace, even where spiritual 
victories have been won, and where 
we have met Him, in our Bethany and 
Em ma us way. 

But, these facts relating to experi- 
ences peculiarly persona] in natural 
relations should not be used to drape 
or veil other experiences from the 



I o Preface, 

vision of our fellows, where our 
brother Divine has soothed us, bound 
our wounds, thrust over us His shield 
in greatest peril, and made us rejoice 
amid the light and shadows of van- 
ished days and years. 

One of the greatest besetting sins of 
modern Christians, like that of ancient 
Israel, is to forget marvellous mercies 
and deliverances even of the recent 
past. We see angels on our heavenly- 
ladders in our nights of deep personal 
trials, and hide behind the shield of 
the pillar of fire, like those distant rel- 
atives of ours, and forget the en- 
tire experience to-morrow. Or, if we 
have not completely forgotten said 



Preface. 1 1 

experiences, we hesitate to tell a 
neighbor about them for "various rea- 
sons" and vain excuses. 

Every Christian is a monument of 
mercy and lavished love, and the 
voice of our Lover gently and sweetly 
speaks to us daily, saying — "Son, or 
daughter, remember" That is an un- 
grateful soul which, being rescued from 
a watery grave, or a burning tomb, 
would fail for any reason to testify for 
and extol its Saviour. Its experience 
should not be too " delicately sacred" 
about such an event. Kind reader, 
do you agree with me? Should we 
not regard our spiritual mercies and 
victories in our relation to our Lord 



1 2 Preface. 

in the same light ? As every deed of 
self-denial, of sacrifice, and of loving 
service, registers itself in the soul by 
its reflex influence, and thus enriches 
the life and character, so all testi- 
monies for Jesus, spoken or recorded 
for others to read, may be as shafts 
of heavenly light to win many a case 
in the twilight or shadows of faith, 
and be like a pierced hand or side 
of positive proof, to some doubting 
hearts. 

There was one merit of the Greek 
spiritual system which Christians of 
to-day might well try to cultivate and 
imitate. Their religion was insepar- 
ably connected with the every-day 



Preface. 13 

thoughts of the people. The artistic 
and social life of Greece was indis- 
pensable from her shrines and im- 
ages. Thus, as all true Christians 
must know, the personal Christ in life 
and character is the only true ministry 
that wins by its living testimony. 
We profess to be ambassadors for 
Jesus Christ. An ambassador can 
most effectively represent his sover- 
eign authority by recorded statements 
of his attitude on any question at is- 
sue. Even so, recorded statements of 
our attitude and experience to and 
with Jesus Christ may become living 
acts of the Apostles in this last decade 
of the nineteenth century amid the 



14 Preface. 

rushing, glowing and hopeful life of 
the young people of these times. Do 
we appreciate the advantages that 
may be derived by systematically re- 
cording the incidents of ' ' life's storms " 
and an interchange of such records 
among friends. All spiritually-minded 
Christians, from the humblest to the 
most influential, have had experiences 
with Jesus worth recording as helps 
for others. There are unknown and 
untold victories won by the un- 
crowned heroes and heroines of the 
Church, which may light up many 
discouraged hearts, or become the 
battle-cry and final cheer to win many 
a hard- fought field in individual life. 



Preface. 1 5 

The foregoing must indicate that 
the prime object of this book is an in- 
strumentality for spiritual growth, by 
furnishing the means for inspiration in 
its recorded testimony, and thus influ- 
ence the reader to Ck 'go and do like- 
wise/' by using its blank leaves to 
gather testimonies from friends young 
and old, in the societies of Christian 
Endeavor, Epworth League, Baptist 
Young People's Union, The Y. M. C. 
A., Salvation Army, and among the 
many bands of Christian workers 
throughout the land. It is conceded 
that the purpose of this book suggests 
an innovation in Christian habit, but I 
prayerfully hope that it may lead to 



1 6 Preface. 

the formation of what may be de- 
nominated Testimonial Unions of 
Spiritual Communion. 

These "Stones of the Storm," from 
living witnesses in widely diversified 
conditions, circumstances and spheres 
of life are not more especially marked 
than can be found in a large majority 
of Christian communities throughout 
the world. These records from per- 
sons widely known for their work's 
sake, or prominent position, are not 
of deeper interest or more valuable, 
than the testimonies from those, un- 
known to the world, who are living 
among the country hills or on the 
sea. All these of recent date were 



Preface. 1 7 

contributed to this book, while the 
others were gathered for a former edi- 
tion, the endorsement of which by the 
public warrants the second attempt 
to thus render service for Christian 
hearts through its instrumentality. 
That it may be a gleaner among the 
multitude of young people and be- 
come a blessing is the chief motive of 
its designer and editor. Go forth 
then, "little Gleaner!'' Be a mes- 
senger of our blessed Lord, exhibiting 
trophies of His grace, won in His 
name and by His strength alone. Be 
a lighted cross held before the eyes of 
fallen, wounded ones, who are look- 
ing up through their tears for the signs 



1 8 Preface. 

of divine presence. Be the voice of 
our gentle Shepherd, speaking- through 
human souls to many, saying : li Lo, 
I am with you always ! " I shall be 
truly thankful if one heart traversing 
its lonely way, darkened and de- 
pressed, shall find herein light amid 
the shadows, imparting strength, com- 
fort and cheer. 

Yours, in " His " name and love, 
A. C. Ferguson. 



BISHOP JOHN H. VINCENT. 



r HAVE been asked to give a state- 
ment as to my religious experi- 
ence ; especially an account of my 
" conversion. " I was born of a pray- 
ing mother in the home of an earnest 
Christian father. Family prayer, 
morning and evening, was never 
omitted. Religious conversation, 

religious reading at the family circle, 
attendance upon all the means of 
grace, public and social, the singing 
of religious hymns and songs every 

Sunday evening for an hour or more 
19 



20 Bishop John H. Vincent. 

— all these means of grace brought 
me into constant contact with relig- 
ious agencies and the religious experi- 
ences of others. . The sense of sin I 
always had. A desire for goodness 
was intense from my earliest recollec- 
tion. I was morbidly religious. All 
this religious conviction and aspira- 
tion did not overcome the power of 
selfishness and sin within me. I was, 
in spite of it all, although not an out- 
wardly wicked boy, under the control 
of impulse, selfish ambition and other 
things not according to the Spirit of 
God. The great end I had in view 
was "the certainty of future salva- 
tion/' I "sought religion " (using a 



Bisliop John H. Vincent. 21 

term much in vogue in those days in 
the Church in which I was brought 
up). I had many seasons of faith, 
peace and hope ; many good resolu- 
tions ; much private reading of the 
Scripture, and much secret prayer, 
but as I now look back upon my re- 
ligious life in boyhood, everything 
was superficial, but I think sincere. 
I joined the Church "on probation" 
and in "full membership''' when I 
was about sixteen years of age. 
There was very little difference be- 
tween my inner and outer life before 
and after this act. As the years went 
by I lived a religious life outwardly, 
and my intentions and desires were of 



22 Bishop John H. Vincent. 

the highest. I had seasons of comfort 
and many seasons of depression. As 
I now look at the most of my relig- 
ious life, I believe that I was a servant 
of Jesus Christ with mingled motives, 
many humiliating failures and much 
depression of spirits. A few years 
ago, after a period of profound and 
unutterable mental and spiritual dis- 
tress, I came into the light and liberty 
of faith. It was the crisis of my life. 
A substratum of doubt and of evil, of 
the presence of which I was con- 
stantly conscious, but the destruction 
of which most of the time seemed im- 
possible, at the time of the crisis above 
referred to, was apparently broken up 



Bishop John H. Vincent, 23 

and the light of heaven seemed to 

reach the very foundations of my 

being. Since that time I have had no 

doubt whatever of my union with and 

allegiance to the Lord. For these few 

years I have walked in the light 

every day. Eternal things are as real 

to me as the Earth on which I walk, 

and the Sun that shines in the 

heavens. 

John H. Vincent. 

Harvard University, 
February 28, 1896. 



FANNY CROSBY'S CONVER- 
SION. 

F WAS brought up under a religious 
training from the earliest moments 
of my life. My ancestors were dea- 
cons and choristers. I was brought 
up in the old Puritanic Presbyterian 
Church. I went to Sunday school 
when eight years of age, in Ridge- 
field, Connecticut. I always had 
a reverence for religious things, I 
think. I can date my conversion to a 
dream : I dreamed that a friend of 

mine was dying, and that he sent for 
24 



Fanny Crosby s Conversion. 25 

me and asked me if I could give him 
up. I said, " No I cannot. You 
have always been my counsel and 
I cannot let you ero. w But he said, 
" Why would you chain a spirit to 
earth that longs to fly away and be 
at rest ? You know my loved ones 
are all there and I long to be in 
heaven." "Well, I replied." " I can- 
not give you up in my own strength." 
"Fanny/' he said, "will you make 
me a promise? " " Yes," I answered, 
"anything in the range of human 
possibility, I will do for you." He 
looked at me earnestly, and said, 
"Will you promise to meet me in 
heaven ? " I said " Yes, by the grace 



26 Fanny Crosby s Conversion* 

of God, I will." He opened his large 
blue eyes, and looked at me intently 
and said, Cl Remember you are prom- 
ising a dying man/' I repeated the 
answer, the eyes closed, and the spirit 
passed away. I awoke, and for six 
months was under deep conviction. 
I could not think of anything but, 
"Will you promise to meet me in 
heaven ? " 

One evening at a protracted meet- 
ing in Thirtieth Street, I knelt at the 
altar feeling that if I was not saved 
that night I would never be. Prayers 
were offered, and the light began to 
dawn faintly at last. They began to 
sing that beautiful hymn, "Alas and 



Fanny Crosby s Conversion. 27 

did my Saviour bleed/' when they 
came to the third line of the fourth 
verse, " Here Lord I give myself 
away/' the burden was gone, and 
springing to my feet in the ecstasy 
of my joy, I cried out, "Halleluiah! 
yes, Lord, I give myself away, 'tis all 
that I can do." The trouble was I 
had been trying to hold the world in 
one hand, and the good Lord in the 
other. 

Brooklyn, 
March 15, 1896. 



REV. C. H. SPURGEON. 

Six years ago to-day (1858), as near 

as possible at this very hour of the 

day, I was "in the gall of bitterness, 

and in the bonds of iniquity/' but had 

yet, by divine grace, been led to feel 

the bitterness of that bondage, and to 

cry out by reason of the soreness of 

its slavery. Seeking rest, and finding 

none, I stepped into the house of God, 

and sat there, afraid to look upward, 

lest I should be utterly cut off, and 

lest His fierce wrath should consume 
28 



Rev. C. H. Spurge on. 29 

me. The minister rose in his pulpit, 
and, as I have done this morning-, 
read this text: "Look unto Me, and 
be ye saved, all the ends of the earth : 
for I am God, and there is none else." 
I looked that moment ; the grace of 
faith was vouchsafed to me in the self- 
same instant ; and now I think I can 
say with truth : 

" E'er since by faith I saw the stream, 
His flowing wounds supply, 
Redeeming love has been my theme, 
And shall be till I die." 

I shall never forget that day while 
memory holds its place ; nor can I 
help repeating this text when I re- 
member that hour when first I knew 
the Lord. How strangely gracious ! 



30 Rev. C. H. Spurgeon. 

How wonderfully and marvelously 
kind, that he who heard these words 
so little time ago for his own soul's 
profit, should now address you this 
morning- as his hearers from the same 
text, in the full and confident hope 
that some poor sinner within these 
walls may hear the glad tidings of 
salvation for himself also, and may 
to-day, on this 6th of January, be 
"turned from darkness to light, and 
from the power of Satan unto God ! " 



MISS FRANCES E. WILLARD. 

I was lying on my bed in my home 
at Evanston, Illinois, in the crisis of 
typhoid fever. It was one night in 
June, 1859. The doctor had said that 
the crisis would soon arrive, and I had 
overheard his words. Mother was 
watching in the next room. My 
whole soul was intent, as two voices 
seemed to speak within me, one of 
them saying : " My child, give me 
thy heart. I called thee long by joy, 
I call thee now by chastisement ; but 
3* 



32 Miss Frances E. Willard. 

I have called thee always and only 
because I love thee with an everlast- 
ing love/' Solemnly, definitely, and 
with my whole heart I said, not in 
spoken words, but in the deeper lan- 
guage of consciousness : "If God lets 
me get well, I'll try to be a Christian 
girl." I was then nineteen years old. 
But this resolve did not bring peace. 
" You must at once declare this resolu- 
tion," said the inward voice. After a 
hard battle, in which I lifted up my 
soul to God for strength, I faintly 
called mother from the next room, and 
said " Mother, I wish to tell you that 
if God lets me get well, Til try to be a 
Christian girl." She took my hand, 



Miss Frances E. Willard. 33 

knelt beside by bed, and wept and 

prayed. I then turned my face to the 

wall and sweetly slept. That winter 

we had revival services in the old 

Methodist church at Evanston. Dr. 

(now Bishop) Foster, was president of 

the university, and his sermons, with 

those of Drs. Dempster, Bannister and 

others, deeply stirred my heart. The 

very first invitation to go forward, 

kneel at the altar and be prayed for, 

w^as heeded. For fourteen nights in 

succession I thus knelt at the altar, 

expecting some utter transformation. 

One night when I returned to my 

room, baffled, weary and discouraged, 

and knelt beside my bed, it came to 
3 



34 Miss Frances E. Willard. 

me quietly that this was not the way ; 
that my "conversion," my "turn- 
ing about," my religious experience 
(religio, to bind again), had reached 
its crisis on that summer night when 
I said "yes" to God. A quiet certi- 
tude of this pervaded my conscious- 
ness, and the next night I told the 
public congregation so, gave my 
name to the church as a probationer, 
and after holding this relation for a 
year — waiting for sister Mary, who 
joined later, to pass her six months 7 
probation — I was baptized and joined 
the church " in full connection." 



COWPER, THE POET. 

Cowper, the poet, speaking of his 
religious experience, says : 

"The happy period which was to 

shake off my fetters and afford me a 

clear opening to the free mercy of God 

in Christ Jesus, was now arrived. I 

flung myself into a chair near the 

window, and seeing a Bible there, 

ventured once more to apply to it for 

comfort and instruction. The first 

verse I saw was the 25th of the third 

chapter of Romans : ' Whom God 
35 



36 Cow per, The Poet. 

hath set forth to be a propitiation, 
through faith in His blood, to declare 
the righteousness for the remission of 
sins that are past, through the forbear- 
ance of God/ Immediately I received 
strength to believe, and the full beams 
of the Sun of righteousness shone up- 
on me. I saw the sufficiency of the 
atonement He had made, my pardon 
sealed in His blood, and the fullness 
and completeness of His justification. 
In a moment I believed and received 
the Gospel." 



REV. CHARLES WESLEY. 

Charles Wesley had been for years 
groping in spiritual darkness — 

" Without one cheering beam of hope, 
Or spark of glimmering day." 

On a bright morning in -May, 1738, 
he awoke, wearied and sick at heart, 
but in high expectation of the coming 
blessing. He lay on his bed "full of 
tossings to and fro," crying out : '" O 
Jesus, Thou hast said : ' I will send the 
Comforter unto you.' Thou art God, 
who canst not lie. I wholly rely 
37 



38 Rev. Charles Wesley. 

upon Thy promise. Accomplish it in 
Thy time and manner/' A poor 
woman, Mrs. Turner, heard his groan- 
ing, and, constrained by an impulse 
never felt before, put her head into 
his room, and gently said: " In the 
name of Jesus of Nazareth, arise and 
believe, and thou shalt be healed of 
all thine infirmities." He listened, 
and then exclaimed : " Oh, that Christ 
would but thus speak to me ! " He 
inquired who it was that had whis- 
pered in his ear these life-giving 
words. A great struggle agitated his 
whole man and in another moment he 
exclaimed earnestly: "I believe! I 
believe ! " He then found redemption 



Rev. Charles Wesley. 39 

in the blood of the Lamb, and experi- 
enced the forgiveness of sins. The 
hymn he wrote to commemorate the 
anniversary of his spiritual birth, 
shows the mighty change that had 
taken place, and is best expressed in 
his own language : 

" O, for a thousand tongues to sing ! " 



A SLAVE'S. 

Cambo, a negro slave, gave the 

following account of his conversion : 

"While in my own country (Guinea), 

me had no knowledge of the being of 

a God ; me thought me should die like 

the beasts. After me was brought to 

America, and sold as a slave, as me 

and another servant of the name of 

Bess was working in the field, me 

began to sing one of my old country 

songs, ' It is time to go home ; ' 

when Bess say : 'Cambo, why you 

sing for ? ' Me say : i Me no sick, me 

no sorry, why me no sing ? ' Bess 
40 



A Slave's. 41 

say : 'You better pray your Lord and 
Massah to have mercy on your soul/ 
Me looked round, me looked up, me 
see no one to pray to ; but the words 
sound in my ears, ' Better pray to 
your Lord and Massah.' By and by 
me feel bad, sun shine sorry — birds 
sing" sorry — land look sorry, but 
Cambo sorrier than all. Then me cry 
out : ' [Mercy, mercy, Lord ! on poor 
Cambo ! ' By and by water come in 
my eyes, and glad come in my heart. 
The sun look gay, woods look gay, 
birds sing gay, but poor Cambo glad- 
der than them all. Me love my 
Massah some ; me want to love him 
more. " 



ORIGEN. 

Origen, who was born in Alexan- 
dria eighteen years after Polycarp's 
death, and who became one of the 
most earnest and influential of the 
Christian fathers, was early instructed 
by his mother in the Christian religion, 
and to her he owed, under God, both 
his religion and his greatness. 



42 



REV. DR. JOHN HALL. 

I had the great blessing, from the 
God of Salvation, of instruction from 
my infancy in the truths of God's word. 
I could not indicate a time of conver- 
sion. At the age of fourteen I was 
received as a member of the Church, 
after careful examination by a faithful 
pastor, who drew out my convictions 
as to my confidence in Christ as my 
Redeemer, my purpose to do His will 
as it was set forth in His word, and 
my right understanding of the nature 
and efficacy of the Sacraments. 
43 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Abraham Lincoln believed in the 
Christian Religion, and revered God 
before he became President of the 
United States, as was evinced by his 
request to his friends and neighbors at 
Springfield, 111., on his departure for 
Washington, to be inaugurated. He 
said : "Pray for me that I may have 
God's help, and that he may guide me 
in the discharge of the great respon- 
sibilities I am about to assume.' 7 
During the first half of the war, his 
44 



Abraham Lincoln. 45 

little son " Tad " became a conspicu- 
ous figure at the Executive Mansion. 
He was a sunny, promising child, and 
the especial comfort and delight of his 
father's heart amid the dark days, and 
cares of state. It became well known 
that " Tad Lincoln " had the run of the 
White House, and was on familiar 
terms with the great men of the land. 
While Generals and Senators were wait- 
ing for hours to obtain an interview with 
the toiling President, " Tad" would be 
seen frequently going to and from the 
almost sacred presence of his father, 
when men on whose acts momentous 
events might depend, were anxiously 
seeking the favors the little boy so 



46 Abraham Lincoln, 

freely enjoyed. So it came to pass, 
that some of these men whose duties 
were particularly pressing, more than 
once took advantage of "Tads" 
presence, and by him sent a special 
message to his father, that they must 
see him at once. Undoubtedly the 
great-hearted President was not dis- 
pleased with the spirit of this little 
ruse, for he responded to these particu- 
lar messages. Little "Tad" was 
taken violently sick and the President, 
amid all his anxieties and burden- 
bearing, tenderly watched his sick 
child in vain, as God called the little 
one home. "Tad's" death was a 
crushing blow to Lincoln's heart, but 



Abraham Lincoln. 47 

it brought him nearer to God in Jesus' 
love. His son had been an interces- 
sor for others to him. Said Lincoln : 
"I now feel the force of the Scripture 
that saith : ' God so loved the world 
that He gave His only begotten Son, 
that whosoever believeth in Him 
should not perish, but have everlasting 
life/ I now see as never before the 
preciousness of God's love in Jesus 
Christ, and how we are brought near 
to God as our Father by Him.'' Thus 
was Lincoln's saving faith in Christ 
declared to the world. 



GELASIUS, AN ACTOR. 

Gelalius was a comic actor in the 
theatre at Heliopolis. A burlesque of 
Christian ordinances was one day- 
given for the entertainment of the 
heathen audience. A large bath-tub 
was placed on the stage filled with 
warm water. In this Gelasius was 
dipped by the other actor, who pro- 
nounced over him the usual formula : 
" I baptize thee in the name of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Ghost. " When he came forth he was 



Gclasius, An Actor. 49 



arrayed in white, after the custom with 
the newly baptized. A great change 
was observed in his appearance. His 
jesting air was gone, and his face 
wore a look of deep seriousness. He 
announced his conversion, saying : 
"I am a Christian. I will die as a 
Christian. " When they heard this, and 
understood that he was in earnest, the 
mob rushed upon the stage, seized 
him, dragged him forth in his white 
robe and stoned him to death. A. D. 
297. 



REV. DR. A. C. DICKSON. 

I was converted at eleven years of 
age. I had read Bunyan's "Pilgrim's 
Progress " and thought that I must 
have a burden as heavy and large as 
Pilgrim's pack. Suddenly it would fall 
off and I would go on to heaven singing 
and shouting. I was burdened because 
I was not burdened ; I wept because I 
could not weep. In that state of mind 
I heard a gospel talk on the text "Be- 
lieve on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou 
shalt be saved." I said to myself, 
5° 



Rev. Dr. A. C. Dickson. 51 

That does not say be burdened or un- 
burdened ; it says one thing, "Be- 
lieve." I determined to do just that 
and quit seeking anything more. 
There came into my heart a quiet 
peace but no ecstasy. I accepted the 
Lord Jesus Christ in cold blood by an 
act of simple faith, and that text has 
been my sheet anchor ever since. 
Times of ecstatic joy have come, but 
I do not put much value on them. 
Jesus Christ, author and finisher of 
faith, is all and in alL 



REV. ALFRED COOKMAN. 

Alfred Cookman was converted at 
the age of ten years. His father was 
the pastor of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church at Carlisle, the seat of Dickin- 
son College. Much spiritual interest 
had been awakened among the stu- 
dents. On one occasion many of them 
bowed at the altar, and no little inter- 
est was naturally felt in their behalf. 
It was hardly possible to overestimate 
the amount of good that might result 

from the personal consecration of these 

52 



Rev. Alfred Cookman. 53 

educated young men to the Master's 
service. But in that congregation, 
quite overlooked, attracting only the 
particular attention of the Christian 
person at the time, was one little lad, 
not yet twelve years of age. He did 
not make himself conspicuous by the 
position he took, or by any marked 
demonstration of feeling on his part, 
but in a distant corner of the church, 
kneeling alone, he wept and prayed 
earnestly, and cried: "Precious Sav- 
iour, thou art saving others, oh ! wilt 
thou not save me ? " There was a 
pious elder in the Presbyterian church 
in Carlisle who was present. With a 
warm heart and with gentle words he 



54 Rev. Alfred Cookman. 

unfolded, to the faith of the weeping 
boy, the simple and wonderful plan 
by which God saves us, when we trust 
in Him who died for us, as our Saviour. 
"I will believe," the sobbing child 
responded; "I do believe. I now 
believe that Jesus is my Saviour, that 
He saves me — yes, even now." And 
faith, in the trusting boy, brought its 
promised result of peace and love and 
joy. Many years after, as he recurred 
to this hour, he writes: "I love to 
think of it; it fills my heart unutter- 
ably full of gratitude, love and joy. 
' Happy day, oh ! happy day, when 
Jesus washed my sins away. " ; 



REV. DR. RUSSELL H. CONWELL. 

1 ' It is interesting to note that the 
work of the distinguished preacher at 
the Baptist Temple in Philadelphia, 
Russell H. Conwell, can be traced back 
to the influence of a little boy by the 
name of Ring, who went to the war 
with Mr. Conwell in the Second Mas- 
sachusetts Regiment. Mr. Conwell at 
jail, was a professed disbeliever in the 
Bible and openly expressed his views, 
but this little boy from Westfield, 
Mass., went out with Captain Conwell 
55 



56 Rev. Dr. Russell H. Conwell. 

as his servant under military discipline. 
The boy was a true Christian and had 
promised his mother before her death 
that he would read the Bible every day. 
Captain Conwell often ridiculed him 
for his religious fervor, but the boy 
was true to his Bible. During a battle 
at Newport, N. C. , when the Union 
troops were driven across the Newport 
river, a long railroad bridge was set on 
fire to prevent the enemy from follow- 
ing. Captain Conwell's gold-sheathed 
sword, which was presented to him 
at the city of Springfield, Mass., was 
overlooked in the excitement and left 
in his burning tent. Captain Conwell 
used another sword and kept the pres- 



Rev. Dr. Russell H. Conwell. 57 

ent carefully wrapped in his tent. 
The boy, after the bridge was blazing, 
thought of the sword and ran back for 
it. He secured it in the midst of the 
enemy and succeeded in carrying the 
sword through the smoke and fire of 
the burning bridge, but it cost him his 
life, and his dying words were, Tell 
the captain I love him, and I hope he 
has got his sword." Afterward Col. 
Conwell was wounded severely, at 
Kennesaw Mountain in Georgia, and 
left upon the field. He expected to 
die. The next day he was carried un- 
conscious to the hospital tent, and 
when he recovered his consciousness 
he thought of the boy who had saved 



58 Rev. Dr. Russell H. Conwell. 

his sword and felt the need of his 
prayers. Col. Conwell sent for the 
chaplain and told him of the boy's 
sacrifice to save his sword and of his 
resolution made the night before that if 
he should live, he would himself be a 
Christian. He gave his heart to Christ 
that day and at the close of the war, 
united with the First Baptist Church 
in St. Paul, Minn." 



PETER JACOBS, AN INDIAN. 

The following is the experience of 
Peter Jacobs, a Chippewa Indian of 
Canada, as given at Exeter Hall, Lon- 
don : "When I was in my heathen 
state, I heard a missionary speak of a 
beautiful heaven where nothing but 
joy was to be experienced, and of the 
awful flames of hell into which the 
wicked shall be cast if they do not 
believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. I 
made inquiry if there was any possi- 
bility of a Chippewa Indian getting into 
59 



60 Peter Jacobs, an Indian. 

heaven. I was told that heaven was 
open to all believers in Christ Jesus. 
I was very glad when I understood 
this ; I began to pray. I said : ' 
Christ, have mercy on me, a poor 
sinner, poor Indian ! ' This was the 
beginning of my prayer, and the end 
of my prayer. I could not say any 
more, because I did not know any 
more English. I thought if I prayed 
in Chippewa, Christ would not under- 
stand me. Christ affected my heart 
very much. I felt just like a wounded 
deer. When we shoot a deer in the 
heart with bow and arrow, he runs 
away as if he was not hurt ; but when 
he gets to the hill, he feels the pain, 



Peter Jacobs, an Indian. 61 

and lays down on that side where the 
pain is most severe. Then he feels 
the pain on the other side, and turns 
over, and so he wanders about till he 
dies. I then went up into a stable 
where hay was kept, and there I 
prayed : ' O my Heavenly Father, 
now have mercy upon me, for the 
sake of Thy son Jesus Christ/ I 
then prayed again : ' O Jesus, the 
Saviour of the world, apply now Thy 
precious blood to my heart, that all 
my sins may depart ! ' I wanted rest 
and sleep, but I could not rest. Like 
the wounded deer, I turned from side 
to side, but I could not rest. At last I 
got up at midnight and walked about 



62 Peter Jacobs, an Indian, 

my room : I made another effort to 
pray and said : '0 Jesus, I will not let 
Thee go until Thou bless me/ and be- 
fore the break of day I found that my 
heavy heart was taken away, and I 
felt happy ; I felt the joy which is un- 
speakable and full of glory. Then I 
found Jesus was sweet indeed to my 

SOIll." 



CHARLES CULLIS, M. D. 

Charles Cullis, of the Faith Home, 
of Boston, says : 

"At about the age of seventeen, I 
felt I ought to be a Christian. How, 
I did not know. Nobody told me. I 
supposed the only way would be to 
read the "Bible and pray, and I went 
at it. When I was converted, I do 
not know, but I am very sure I was. 
I don't know the date, for there was 
no particular sensation or emotion to 

63 



64 Charles Cullis, M. D. 

mark it. Some four or five years 
after, I met with a great sorrow, and 
I consecrated myself wholly to God. 
Soon after I thought about doing 
something for the Master, and it came 
about in answer to prayer, in the es- 
tablishment of a Consumptives' Home, 
and other institutions. My thought 
then was, how to conduct this work— 
whether or not I should beg. The 
promises of God were brought very 
forcibly to my mind as to whether 
they were true or not. I puzzled over 
them for a few days, until I was led 
to declare: 'I will believe every word 
of Gods truth/ From that moment 
to this I have never bad the least shad- 



Cliarlcs Cullis, M. D. 65 

o\v of doubt of the truths of God's 
word, and have acted upon the prom- 
ises and lived according to them for 
nearly twenty-five years." 
5 



REV. JOHN NEWTON. 

John Newton when a young man was 
captain of a Liverpool vessel, and was 
engaged in the slave trade during a 
number of years. But he learned to 
pray at his mother's knee. She was 
taken to heaven before he w r as eight 
years old. At sea in the midst of many 
dangers, and much wickedness, his 
agonizing prayer was often (when un- 
der temporary conviction of sin) : 
"My mother's God, the God of mercy, 

have mercy on me ! " 
66 



Rev. John Newton. 67 

He was engaged to be married to an 
estimable young Christian lady of Lon- 
don. On one occasion he called to 
bid her good-bye in the evening as his 
ship was to sail for the African Coast 
the following day. As he was parting 
from his love, she pleaded with him to 
abandon the business in which he was 
engaged. 

He replied: "At this hour (eleven 
o'clock) to-morrow night, I shall be 
many leagues at sea. You see yon- 
der North Star — will you look at that 
star at this hour to-morrow night and 
pray God to help me to do His will? 
I will call on His name while gazing 
at the star, and thus we will pray and 



Rev. John Newton. 



be together." His prayers to his 
mother's God were heard, and his 
mother's prayers were answered. 
Through him, Scott the Commentator 
was led to Christ, and Wilberforce, the 
champion of African freedom, and au- 
thor of that "Practical View of Chris- 
tianity/' which brought Leigh Rich- 
mond into the ministry of Christ. 

When Newton was an old man, 
while standing in the doorway of his 
home one day, he saw a drunken man 
passing in the street and cursing God 
and men — said he : "There goes John 
Newton, but for the grace of God/ 1 



POLYCARP. 

Polycarp was the disciple and inti- 
mate friend of the apostle John, and 
suffered martyrdom A. D. 165, having 
enjoyed the personal instruction of 
John about twenty-three years. 

He was a glorious example of the 
power of early instruction and the 
sanctification of childhood. Polycarp 
was Bishop of Smyrna. When ninety 
years old he was brought to the stake, 
for no other crime than that of being a 
Christian. 

69 



MARTIN LUTHER. 

Luther, in speaking of his conversion, 
said : "If ever there was a man who. 
before the gospel was made known to 
him, highly esteemed the teachings of 
the fathers and the decrees of the Pope, 
and with great earnestness contended 
for the same, then it was I who did so 
in a peculiar manner. And yet, no 
matter how much I studied and prayed, 
I found no peace to my soul." One 
day while studying his Bible, his eyes 
fell upon the passage : "The just shall 
live by faith." Alone it was incom- 
70 



Martin Lather. yi 

prehensible. These words involved 
the perplexity of terror. Defined in 
their narrow meaning and without col- 
lateral significance, even now they 
carry an impression of austerity. So 
Luther read them in his Bible. He 
turned to the friendly commentary of 
St. Augustine, read it and made a note. 
He said: ''Then was I glad; for I 
learned and saw that God's righteous- 
ness was His mercy, by which He ac- 
counts and holds us justified. Thus I 
reconciled justice with justification, 
and felt assured that I was in the true 
faith. It seemed to me as though 
heaven's gate stood fully open and I 
was entering- therein." 



HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

" I was a child of teaching and 
prayer ; I was reared in the household 
of faith ; I knew the catechism as it 
was taught ; I was instructed in the 
Scriptures as they were expounded 
from the pulpit and read by men , and 
yet, till after I was twenty-one years 
old, I groped without the knowledge 
of God in Christ Jesus. I know not 
what the tablets of eternity have writ- 
ten down, but I think that when I 

stand in Zion, and before God, the 

72 



Hairy Ward Beecher* 73 

brightest tiling which I shall look back 
upon will be that blessed morning of 
May when it pleased God to reveal to 
my wandering- soul the idea that it was 
His nature to love a man in his sins 
for the sake of helping him out of them ; 
that He did not do it out of compliment 
to Christ, or to a law, or a plan of sal- 
vation, but from the fullness of His 
great heart ; that He was a Being, not 
made mad by sin, but sorry ; that He 
was not furious with wrath toward the 
sinner, but pitied him — in short, that 
He felt toward me as my mother felt 
toward me, to whose eyes my wrong- 
doing brought tears, who never pressed 
me so close to her as when I had done 



74 Henry Ward Beecher. 

wrong, and who would fain, with her 
yearning love, lift me out of trouble. 
And when I found that Jesus Christ 
had such a disposition, I felt that I had 
found a God. I shall never forget the 
feelings with which I walked forth that 
May morning. The golden pavements 
will never feel to my feet as then the 
grass felt to them ; and the singing of 
the birds in the woods — for I roamed 
in the woods — was cacophonous to the 
sweet music of my thoughts ; and 
there were no forms in the universe 
which seemed to me graceful enough 
to represent the Being, a conception 
of whose character had just dawned 
upon my mind. I felt when I had, 



Henry Ward Bcecher. 75 

with the Psalmist, called upon the 
heavens, the earth, the mountains, the 
streams, the floods, the birds, the 
beasts, and universal being, to praise 
God, that I had called upon nothing 
that could praise Him enough for the 
revelation of such a nature as that in 
the Lord Jesus Christ/' 



FRANCES RIDLEY HAVERGAL. 

" Yes, it was on Advent Sunday, 
December 2, 1873, I ^ rs ^ saw ^ ne 
blessedness of true consecration. I 
saw it as a flash of electric light, and 
what you see you can never unsee. 

"There must be full surrender be- 
fore there can be full blessedness. 
God admits you by the one into the 
other. He, Himself, showed me all 
this most clearly. First, I was shown 
that "the blood of Jesus Christ His 
Son cleanseth us from all sin/' and 

76 



Frances Ridley Haver gal. 77 

then it was made plain to me, that He 
who had thus cleansed me, had power 
to keep me clean. So I just utterly 
yielded myself to Him, and utterly 
trusted Him to keep me." 



BALLINGTON BOOTH. 

The following facts of the conver- 
sion of Ballington Booth and of his 
wife, Mrs. Maud Booth, like other ac- 
counts were especially contributed for 
" How They Entered the Harbor/' 

Commander Booth was born in the 
town of Brighouse, Yorkshire, Eng- 
land, on the 28th of July, 1857, and 
is the second son of General William 
Booth and his late wife Catherine. 
Being reared from infancy under the 
influence of a pious father and mother, 

78 



Ballington Booth. 79 

he was converted when a child. He 
was a delicate and sensitive child ; 
tall, thin, intensely high-strung ; and 
for many years it was evident that he 
had outgrown his strength. But he be- 
gan the work which he has carried out 
so characteristically, consistently, and 
successfully through his life, in his 
early boyhood. He began conducting 
little meetings on the playground, and 
was often struck and knocked down 
by schoolmates who took issue with 
him. His first serious work was 
undertaken in Man Chester, England, 
when he had attained the rank of 
Captain in the Salvation Army. Dur- 
ing his work there he was arrested and 



80 Ballingtojt BootJi. 

imprisoned ; so violent was the op- 
position to the methods of the Army, 
at that time. He was treated as a 
common felon, given prison clothes 
and prison diet. This, however, far 
from quelling his enthusiasm and 
stopping the work, only acted as a 
further incentive to Captain Booth 
and his brave assistant ; and brought 
thousands to hear him who otherwise 
would have ignored his appeal. 

Captain Booth became Major Booth, 
then Colonel Booth, father of the first 
Training Home in 1880. His grand 
and successful work in America during 
the last ten years has won the ad- 
miration of all true lovers of our Lord. 



MRS. BALLINGTON BOOTH. 

Mrs. Ballington Booth is the daugh- 
ter of the Rev. Samuel Charlesworth, 
a rector of the Church of England. 
This youngest of his three children, 
was born at Lympsfield, near London. 
Three years after her birth, Mr. 
Charlesworth was given charge of a 
large and important parish in the 
East End of London. It is rather a 
singular coincidence that the " penny 

gaff " which the Rev. William Booth 
6 81 



82 Mrs. Ballington Booth. 

had captured for his mission was just 
opposite the church in which Mr. 
Charlesworth preached ; and still more 
singular that when the police drove 
Mr. Booth from the streets the Rectory 
gates were thrown open, and upon 
those grounds were held many success- 
ful open-air meetings. 

Her mother, too, was one who 
made the people's interests her own, 
and in their parish no one was so 
reverenced and loved for kindly deeds 
and cheering words as the Rector's 
wife. It was her indefatigable toil 
and self-sacrifice for others that short- 
ened her life by many years, and 
brought to Maud Charlesworth a loss 



Mrs. Ballington Booth. 83 

that was irreparable. Mrs. Charles- 
worth had frequently taken her little 
girls across to Mr. Booth's mission, 
and it was no surprise nor disappoint- 
ment to her when her youngest dau^h- 
ter consecrated herself to God in one 
of those meetings. 

Shortly after her mothers death, at 
the age of seventeen, Maud Charles- 
worth, accompanied by her father, 
crossed to France to begin an active 
warfare by the side of Catherine 
Booth the General's eldest daughter, 
amid the darkness and infidelity of 
Paris. Two years in warfare which 
still counts as the most difficult and 
bitter in Salvation Army history, made 



84 Mrs. Ballington Booth. 

of the timid girl a tried veteran. Her 
consecration and devotion to Christ 
are well known. 



FRANCIS E. CLARK- 
president OF THE NATIONAL SOCIETY. 

Like a great multitude of youth I 
was born into a Christian home and 
brought up by Christian parents. I 
always knew what my duty was from 
the earliest day that I can remember ; 
and when I have not done that duty it 
has not been for lack of knowledge 
but for lack of will and determined 
purpose. I always knew that I ought 
to be a confessed Christian, and can- 
not remember the time when any 

85 



86 Francis E. Clark. 

other course seemed to be right or 
reasonable. 

One day, a crisis in my life, as so 
many others could say if they were 
relating their own story, was the day 
when I made up my mind not only to 
be Christ's, but to let others know it. 
I remember well the little old-fashioned 
chapel of the country church with its 
hard, straight-backed seats. I can re- 
member now where I sat, though I 
was then scarcely thirteen years of 
age ; and if I should tell you the whole 
truth I should have to confess that it 
was more than thirty years ago. I 
had no remarkable experience, no 
blinding light from heaven, no im- 



Francis E. Clark. 87 

pulse that I could not resist if I had 
chosen to resist it ; but I did know my 
duty and I determined, as a million 
boys have done before and since, to 
try to do it ; and when the minister 
who had charge of that prayer-meet- 
ing, who was also my dear father, 
asked the question that so many 
ministers before and since have asked, 
whether there were any who were 
willing to acknowledge their love for 
Christ, for the first time I stood up, 
quite alone, if I remember rightly. I 
do not think I said a word, but that 
one night before all the people who 
were present committed me to the side 
of Christ. 



Francis E. Clark, 



I could also tell you, if you cared to 
read, of other events which have helped 
my spiritual life ; but they are all very 
simple, very commonplace, and ap- 
pear tame enough when set down in 
black and white. They have been 
simply efforts to help others, especially 
poor and sick people, in my parish or 
outside of it, and O ! how I wish these 
efforts had been recorded a thousand 
times oftener by the good angel as 
they might have been, had I always 
been ready to do every duty. I should 
also tell you that I have found it nec- 
essary to have regular times for prayer 
and communion with Christ. When 
these have been neglected, I am as 



Francis £. Clark. 89 

confident as I am of my own ex- 
istence, my spiritual life has suffered. 
I pray that all readers of this ac- 
count may grow from grace to grace, 
praying for each other as I am sure 
we will ; that God will continually 
open new and larger spiritual treas- 
ures to each one of us. 

Francis E. Clark. 
Boston, Mass., 1896. 



DETAINED FOR CONVERSION. 

Rev. Dr. Cleveland related the fol- 
lowing incident at the New York an- 
niversary : In a revival of religion in 
the church of which he was pastor, he 
was visited one morning by a member 
of his church, a widow, whose only 
son was a sailor. With a voice trem- 
bling with emotion she said : 

"Dr. Cleveland, I have called to 

entreat you to join me in praying that 

the wind may change/' He looked at 

her in silent amazement. " Yes/' she 
90 



Detained for Conversion. 91 

exclaimed earnestly, "my son has 
gone on board his vessel ; they will 
sail to-night, unless the wind changes.'*' 
"Well, Madam," said the Doctor, "I 
will pray that your son may be con- 
verted on this voyage ; but to pray 
that God would alter the laws of the 
universe on his account, I fear is pre- 
sumption.'" "Doctor," she replied, 
" my heart tells me differently. God's 
spirit is here, souls are being converted 
here. You have a meeting this even- 
ing, and if the wind should change, 
John would stay and go to it ; and 
I believe if he went, he would be con- 
verted. Now, if you cannot join 
me, I must pray alone, for he must 



92 Detained for Conversion. 

stay/' "I will pray for his conver- 
sion/' said the Doctor. On his way 
to the meeting, he glanced at the 
weather-vane ; to his surprise, the 
wind had changed, and it was blow- 
ing landward. On entering his 
crowded vestry, he soon observed 
John sitting upon the front seat. The 
young man seemed to drink in every 
word, rose to be prayed for, and at- 
tended the inquiry meeting. When he 
sailed from port, his mother's prayers 
had been answered ; he went a Chris- 
tian. 



PROFESSOR FRANCKE. 

Professor Fraxcke, of the University 
of Halle, like Chalmers, was a min- 
ister to others before his own heart 
was changed. He was about to 
preach from the words : "But these 
are written, that ye might believe that 
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, 
and that believing ye might have life 
through His name." 

He says: " My whole former life 
came before my eyes just as one sees 
a whole city from a lofty spire. At 
93 



94 Professor Francke. 



first it seemed as if I could number all 
my sins ! But soon there opened the 
great fountain of them — my own blind 
unbelief, which had so long deceived 
me. I was terrified with my lost con- 
dition, and wondered if God were 
merciful enough to bless me. Now I 
know Him ; not alone as my God, but 
as my Father. All melancholy and 
unrest vanished, and I was so over- 
come with joy, that from the fullness 
of my heart I could praise my Saviour. 
With great sorrow I had kneeled, but 
with wonderful ecstasy I had risen 
up." 

A few days afterwards he preached 
from the same text as before. The 



Professor Fran eke, 95 

sermon was the first real one that he 
had preached. Henceforth his heart 
was in the work for which God had 
chosen him. 



JOHN BUNYAN. 

John Bunyan came to the first con- 
sciousness of his exceeding- sinfulness, 
by a reproof of a woman for his aw- 
ful profanity — though she was a vile 
sinner. He had a long and terrific 
struggle with sin and unbelief before 
his conversion. The following is an 
outline account of his experience : 

"Upon a day the good providence 
of God called me to Bedford to work 
at my calling ; and in one of the 
streets of that town, I came where 
there were three or four women sitting 

9 6 



John B nny an. 97 

at a door in the sun talking about the 
things of God. And being now will- 
ing to hear what they said, I drew 
near to hear their discourse, for I was 
now a brisk talker of myself in the 
matter of religion, but I say I heard, 
but understood not ; for they were far 
above out of my reach. Their talk 
was about a new birth — the work of 
God in their hearts, how God had vis- 
ited their souls with His love in the 
Lord Jesus. They reasoned of the 
suggestions and temptations of Satan, 
in particular ; and told to each other 
by what means they had been af- 
flicted, and how they were borne up 
under his assaults. Methought they 
7 



98 John Banyan. 

spake as if joy did make them speak, 
they spake with such pleasantness of 
Scripture language, and with such ap- 
pearance of grace in all they said, that 
they were to me as if I had found a 
new world. For I saw that in all my 
thoughts about religion and salvation, 
the new birth did never enter into my 
mind. I would often make it my busi- 
ness to be going again and again into 
the company of these poor people ; for 
I could not stay away. Presently I 
found two things within me, at which 
I did sometimes marvel, the one was, 
a very great softness and tenderness 
of heart, which caused me to fall 
under conviction of what, by Scripture, 



John B nny an. 99 

they asserted ; and the other was a 
great bending in my mind to a contin- 
ual meditating on it, and on all good 
things, which at any time I heard or 
read of." Bunyan himself marveled, 
as he well might, at this childlike and 
angel-like turn of spirit, especially as 
he says : " Considering what a blind, 
ignorant, sordid, and ungodly wretch, 
but just before I was." His spirit 
• softened like furrows under spring 
showers ; and like them, soon sent 
forth the Cl tender blade." 

One of the first fruits of Bunyan's 
conversion, was a tender concern for 
those whom his former example had 
misled or hardened. 



REV. ADONIRAM JUDSON. 

After finishing his university course, 
he became skeptical on theological 
studies, and strongly inclined to deism. 
He selected dramatic authorship as 
his profession during a brief period of 
time. He attached himself to a the- 
atrical company for the purpose of be- 
coming familiar with the regulations 
of the stage. The sudden death of a 
classmate under circumstances of 
peculiar interest, was the means of ar- 
resting his thoughts and putting him 



Rev, Adoniram Jiidson. 101 

upon a course of serious examination 
of the claims of religion to his pesonal 
attention. While a transient guest at 
a public house, he was startled by 
hearing the sighs and groans of a very 
sick man in an adjoining apartment. 
On inquiry about the sufferer he was 
surprised to learn that it was his class- 
mate (an infidel), then dying. He 
sought his presence and was so im- 
pressed with the consciousness of a 
personal God and eternal life that he 
soon after became a hopeful Christian. 



ATTORNEY-GENERAL GEORGE 
H. WILLIAMS. 

At a recent Moody meeting in Port- 
land, Oregon, ex-Attorney-General 
George H. Williams spoke with much 
feeling as follows : "I have made a 
great many speeches in my life, and 
some from this platform, but this is 
the first time I have ever spoken at a 
religious meeting. For months I have 
been troubled very much on the sub- 
ject of Christianity. I have been look- 
ing forward to the meetings of Mr. 

Moody, and determined I would 
102 



Atty.-Gen. George H. Williams. 103 

attend them. When I first came I 
thought I would sneak in and take a 
back seat ; but I changed my mind 
and said I would go on to the platform 
and identify myself with these meet- 
ings. This I have done with the ex- 
ception of one evening. This was the 
first victory over my pride.. Then, 
yesterday, Mr. Moody came to my 
house, and I joined with him in 
prayer ; the first time I ever bowed 
my knee to God or man in my life. 
This was my second victory. Last 
night I got up and asked the prayers 
of God's people. This was my third 
victory. I feel now perfectly satis- 
fied ; the burden is rolled off and all 



104 Atty.-Gen. George H. Williams. 

gone, and I feel that I could run or fly 
into the arms of Jesus Christ. This is 
my fourth victory. May God give us 
all strength to be true to our convic- 
tions ! " 



AUGUSTINE. 

Augustine, the eminent scholar, and 
Bishop of Hippo, was the especial 
subject of his mother's prayers. Mo- 
nica, his mother, was a most devout 
Christian. From her son's nineteenth 
to the twenty-eighth year of his age, 
while he was rolling in the filth of sin, 
did she in vigorous hope persist in 
earnest prayer. In his twenty-ninth 
year we find her still praying ; he left 
her and went to Rome ; bitterly she 
felt the separation, yet she returned to 
io 5 



io6 Augustine. 



her former employment of prayer. 
From Rome he went to Milan, and 
there we find the praying mother 
again. At length the long-looked-for 
prayed-for time arrived. The teach- 
ing of Ambrose was blessed to her 
son's conversion, and the mother's 
happiness was completed. 



BISHOP HUGH LATIMER. 

Thomas Bilney was an ardent young 
convert, and longed to do something 
for his Lord and Master. Hugh Lati- 
mer was a zealous Roman Catholic 
priest, who preached against the Ref- 
ormation. He berated Melancthon 
with great severity. Bilney went to 
him and told him that he wished to 
confess. In the privacy of the confes- 
sional he told him the whole burning 
story of conviction, conversion and 

new-found happiness. The Holy 
107 



108 Bishop Hugh Latimer. 

Spirit helped, and from that hour Lati- 
mer gave his life to the cause he had 
before fought bitterly, and sealed his 
testimony with his blood. He never 
feared the face of man. 



THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE. 

The circumstances attending- his 
conversion to Christianity are too 
familiar to most readers to render mi- 
nute detail of them here necessary. 
No character has been exhibited to 
posterity in lights more contradictory 
than that of Constantine. Few things 
have occasioned more perplexity to 
writers of ecclesiastical history than 
his vision. According to his own ac- 
count he was marching at the head 

of his army from France into Italy 
109 



no The Emperor Const antine. 

against Maxentius, on an expedition 
which he was fully aware involved in 
it his future destiny. Oppressed with 
extreme anxiety, and reflecting that he 
needed a force superior to arms for 
subduing the sorceries and magic of 
his adversary, he anxiously looked 
out for the aid of some deity, as that 
which alone could secure him success. 
About noon, when the sun began to 
decline, whilst praying for super- 
natural aid, a luminous cross was seen 
by the Emperor and his army, in the 
air above the sun, inscribed with the 
words: "By This, Conquer/' at the 
sight of which amazement over- 
powered both himself and the soldiers 



The Emperor Constantine. 1 1 1 

on the expedition with him. He con- 
tinued to ponder on the event until 
night, when, in a dream, the Author of 
Christianity appeared to him to confirm 
the vision, directing at the same time 
to make the symbol of the cross his 
military ensign. Constantine van- 
quished his adversary, and no sooner 
was he made master of Rome, than he 
honored the cross by putting a spear 
of that form into the hand of the 
statue erected for him at Rome. His 
religious zeal augmented with his 
years. In his last illness he sum- 
moned to the imperial palace at Ni- 
conudia, several Christian bishops, fer- 
vently requesting to receive from them 



1 1 2 The Emperor Constantine. 

the ordinance of baptism and solemnly 
declared his intention of spending the 
remainder of his life as the disciple of 
Christ. He was accordingly baptized 
by Eusebius, bishop of that city, after 
which he entirely laid aside his purple 
and regal robe, and continued to wear 
a white garment till the day of his 
death, which after a short illness took 
place on the 2 2d of May, in the year 
337, at the age of sixty-four, having 
reigned thirty-three years. 



MRS. ADONIRAM JUDSON. 

" It is just a year to-day, " says I\Irs. 
Judson, "since I entertained hope in 
Christ. About this time in the even- 
ing:, when reflecting on the words of 
the lepers : ' If we enter into the city, 
then the famine is in the city, and we 
shall die there : if we sit still here we 
die also/ and felt that if I returned to 
the world I should surely perish, and 
I could but perish if I threw myself on 
the mercy of Christ. Then came light 
and relief and comfort such as I never 

knew before/' 

8 113 



PETER WALDO 

He was an opulent merchant in the 
city of Lyons, where Christ had planted 
a numerous church, to serve as a pillar 
on which his truth was inscribed, or a 
candlestick on which he had placed 
the lamp of life. But the lamp had 
long- been extinguished and the pillar 
removed. Lyons, in the time of Peter 
Waldo, was sunk into a state of 
the grossest darkness and superstition. 
At this time an extraordinary occur- 
rence in providence was the means of 
114 



Peter Waldo. 115 

awakening" the mind of Peter Waldo 
to the one thing needful. One even- 
ing after supper, as he sat conversing 
with a party of his friends and refresh- 
ing himself among them, one of the 
company fell down dead on the floor, 
to the consternation of all who were 
present. Such a lesson on the un- 
certainty of human life most forcibly 
arrested his attention. The sudden 
death of his friend led him to think of 
his own approaching dissolution, and 
under the terrors of an awakened con- 
science, he had recourse to the Holy 
Scriptures for instruction and comfort. 
There by Christ his Saviour he found 
"the pearl of great price" — the way 



u6 Peter Waldo, 

of escape from the wrath to come. 
Waldo was desirous of communicating 
to others a portion of that happiness 
which he himself enjoyed. He aban- 
doned his mercantile pursuits, dis- 
tributed his wealth to the poor as oc- 
casion required ; and while the latter 
flocked to him to partake of his alms, 
he labored to engage their attention to 
the things which belonged to their ever- 
lasting peace. One of the first objects 
of his pursuit, was to put into their 
hands the word of life, and the in- 
habitants of Europe were indebted to 
him for the first translation of the 
Bible into a modern tongue since the 
time that the Latin had ceased to be 



Peter Waldo. 117 



a living language — a gift of inestimable 
value. Amid great persecutions Peter 
Waldo led hundreds of thousands to 
know the truth as it is in Jesus, many 
of whom became martyrs for the truth, 
and their blood the seed of the 
church. 



WILBERFORCE. 

The great English statesman, Wil- 
berforce, was a gay young man, the 
delight of the clubs, and the joy of the 
Doncaster races. At the age of twenty, 
he was elected to the British Parlia- 
ment, was sceptical in principles, and 
inclined to ridicule religion. He was 
convinced of his sins through the teach- 
ing of the Gospel by Dean Milner. His 
anguish for his sins was insupportable 
until he sought the counsel of good 

old John Newton, whom he had often 
118 



Wilberforce. 1 1 9 



heard preach. '•' Mr. Newton entered 
most kindly and affectionately into 
my case." said Wilberforce — and by 
his sympathy, instruction and advice 
he found peace with God. 



DWIGHT L. MOODY. 

(full consecration. ) 

11 This blessing came upon me sud- 
denly like a flash of lightning. It 
was in the fall of 1871. For months I 
had been hungering and thirsting for 
power in service. I had come to that 
point that I think I would have died 
if I had not got it. I remember I was 
walking the streets of New York. I 
had no more heart in the business I 
was about than if I had not belonged 

to this world at all. Right there in the 
120 



Dwight L. Moody. 121 

street the power of God came upon 
me so wonderfully that I had to ask 
God to stay his hand. I was filled 
with a sense of God's goodness, and 
felt as though I could take the whole 
world to my heart. I took the old 
sermon that I had preached before 
without any power: it was the same 
old truth, but there was a new power. 
Many were impressed and converted. 
This happened years after I was con- 
verted myself. I want to tell you this : 
I would not for the whole world go 
back to where I was before 1S71. 
Since then I have never lost the as- 
surance that I am walking in com- 
munion with God, and I have a joy 



122 Dwight L, Moody. 

in his service that sustains me and 
makes it easy work. I believe I was 
an older man then than I am now ; I 
have been growing younger ever since. 
I used to be very tired when preaching 
three times a week ; now I can preach 
five times a day and never get tired at 
all. I have done three times the work 
I did before, and it gets better and 
better every year. It is so easy to do 
a thing where love prompts you. It 
would be better, it seems to me, to 
go and break stone than to take to 
preaching in a professional spirit/' 



SAM W. SMALL. 

"Well, I was converted this way : 
The thirteenth day of last September 
(1883) I took my wife and children and 
went from Atlanta, my home, up to 
Cartersville, fifty miles away, to hear 
Sam Jones preach in a big camp- 
meeting. It was a kind of a Sunday 
excursion. There had been no change 
of life up to that time — but for the 
worse. I heard Sam Jones preach and 

I was convicted of my sins. I was 
123 



124 Sam W. Small. 

awakened. This was on Sunday. I 
went home and got drunk and stayed 
drunk until Tuesday afternoon. Then 
I went into my library at about four 
o'clock and I prayed until I felt that I 
saw my way clear. I had been think- 
ing about my condition and I felt that 
the time had come to stop. I was 
getting over my depth. I looked the 
whole thing in the face and I sur- 
rendered to the Lord. Then I went 
and had 3,000 circulars printed, an- 
nouncing that I would preach that 
evening at the corner of Marietta and 
Peachtree streets. The first job- 
printer that I went to thought I was 
crazy. You see I had been on a 



Sam IV. Small. 125 

drunk, and my friends had often 
thought that I would go crazy from 
drink, and so this man thought the 
same, and wouldn't print my bills. So 
I went to another place and got them 
printed at last. I had them distributed, 
and at the place mentioned a great 
crowd assembled when it came time 
for me to speak. I told them w r hat 
had happened, what I was going to 
do, and told them I meant business. 
They could stand off and see me do 
it. Then as soon as Jones had heard 
what had happened, he telegraphed 
me to come up to Cartersville and 
speak for him. Well, I preached the 
next two nights in local churches, and 



126 Sam W. Small. 

Saturday I went up and preached for 
Jones. From that day to this I have 
lost about a dozen days, speaking" 
some days from one to four times." 



MRS. MARGUERITE BOTTOME. 

I had not what would be called a 
wonderful Christian conversion. When 
fourteen years of age I attended re- 
vival meetings in the Sands Street 
Methodist Episcopal Church of Brook- 
lyn. I became deeply interested in 
the earnest appeals made to seek the 
Lord Jesus Christ. For six weeks I 
went to the altar with others seeking 
forgiveness of my sins. All my young 
friends were converted. Yet I could 

not feel that my sins were forgiven. 
127 



128 Mrs, Marguerite Bottome. 

I felt very sadly and wept much of the 
time, for I wanted to obtain peace 
with God. It was all emotional feeling 
with me and wore off in school asso- 
ciations and did not return until I was 
brought under the influence of some 
appeals from the pulpit or hymn sung, 
such songs as "Come Ye Sinners, 
Poor and Needy." 

But at last the superintendent of our 
Sunday-school expressed to me the 
simplicity of faith, and I grasped the 
-idea that God was my father and that 
Christ was my loving brother. I 
called on His name, and I have peace 
and joy and the assurance of my sins 
forgiven. It is true I had turned to- 



Mrs. Marguerite Bottome. 129 

wards God in faith ; but the feeling 
soon passed away, and then I thought, 
" I have deceived myself.'' Doubts 
gathered over me and then deep 
trouble commenced, for I was con- 
scious that I was regarded as one of 
the converts. I had joined the church 
class and attended its meetings regu- 
larly and yet black clouds of doubt 
gathered over me. When the time 
came for the probationers to be re- 
ceived into the church, this question 
was asked of all : " Have you reason 
to believe that God for Christ's sake has 
forgiven your sins ? " All the members 
of the class by my side said, " Yes ! " 
I said "No," because I did not then 



130 Mrs. Marguerite Bottome. 

feel, as I did before, that my sins were 
forgiven. I now regard this as a period 
of doubt and temptation. I continued 
to be faithful to do my duty as I could 
see it in church relations and gradually 
light and confirmation of faith beamed 
into my soul. I found my heart long- 
ing to love and serve the Lord Jesus, 
and I gradually, by witnessing for Him 
and seeking to do His will, came from 
the vestibule of faith into a large place 
of liberty. At this time of life I am 
impressed with the importance of not 
emphasizing too strongly the emotion al 
element in teaching seekers after the 
Truth and light, but to urge simple 
trust in Christ and anchorage in God's 



Mrs. Marguerite Bottome. I3 1 

promise, tested and proved by faith, 
prayer and service in His name. 
Light will beam on some suddenly like 
a sunburst, and others like the gray 
dawn gradually into clear light. 



PART II. 

THE GLEANER. 

WITH INTRODUCTORY STORIES ILLUSTRATIVE 

OF THE TRIUMPHS OF FAITH, 

PRAYER AND SERVICE. 



THE LIGHTHOUSE IN THE 
STORM. 

For several months we have had as 
a member of our Society a man in 
middle life, who by his earnestness 
and sincere Christian purpose has 
added very much to the spiritual power 
of our meetings. He has more than 
once given testimony to the grace of 
God in reaching; him, while he was in 
the midst of a life of sin. We have 
heard from his own lips the substance 
of the story of his conversion, as lately 



The Lighthouse in the Storm. 

more fully given by him in the Cre- 
morne Mission, in New York City. 

He said ; "I thank God that He led 
me into this mission one night and 
caused me to give my heart to Him. 
Drink and sin robbed me of as beauti- 
ful a family as a father ever had, and 
finally placed me in a felon's cell. I 
remember how in a distant city I was 
led handcuffed by the door of the very 
house where once I had lived a very 
respectable man, and it seemed as 
though my heart would break ; that 
was one of the w r ays that God took to 
lead me to himself. Finally I came to 
New York, and here I sank as low as 
it was possible to get in sin. The 



The Lighthouse in the Storm. 

place where I lived was nothing but 
the abode of thieves. But praise God ! 
He has taken sin away from me. I 
am a drunkard no longer. I am a 
criminal no more. God has taken 
away all profanity from me and has 
made my life bright and hopeful. Al- 
though it is a continual struggle with 
the power of sin, yet I am sure God is 
going to be the victor and is the victor 
to-night." 

About ten days ago I received a 
letter from this man, telling me that 
he has decided to give his services and 
life to God ; that he expects to become 
a worker in some city mission : and 
adding this word: ' ' I have found plenty 



The Lighthouse in the Storm. 

to do for God thus far and have been 

abundantly rewarded, and I am sure 

that a door will be opened somewhere 

soon for work or for preparation for it." 

Francis Stoddard Haines, 
Of Christian Endeavor Society- 
First Presbyterian Church, 
Easton, Pa., 
February, 3, 1896. 



A WORD FOR CHRIST. 

I wish I might do some little ser- 
vice,'' said C one Sabbath after- 
noon in February, 1894. 

"O God, show me/' said he in 
silent prayer, " what I can do." 

Leaving home that evening the 
thought came to him, "I will ask 

Haisey P to become an associate 

member of the Endeavor Society." 

Haisey was a fireman on the local 

railroad, but not a Christian. C 

called on his friend ; the associate 



A Word for Christ, 



pledge was finally signed, and Halsey 
received into the society. 

At the next consecration meeting, 
instead of answering <( present "to 
his name, Halsey arose and said that 
he desired to take an open stand for 
Christ, and with God's help, proposed 
to do so then. 

On Easter Sunday, he was baptized 
into the church, and from that day on, 
his short life was one of growing 
activity and joy in the Masters serv- 
ice. He neglected no opportunity to 
speak for his Master. The Y. M. C. A., 
the church prayer-meeting, the En- 
deavor Society, became to him joyous 
means of grace and of service. 



A Word for Christ. 



On the morning of July 19, as he 
kissed the dear wife and two-weeks' old 
baby boy, good-bye, he said : "Wife, 
dear, I hope we may have a good run 
to-day, so that I can go to prayer- 
meeting to-nisfht. 

The home run from A was that 

of the fast express. As the train was 
dashing through the little village of 

E , it suddenly swept into an open 

switch upon which two freight cars 
were standing. The emergency 
brake saved the train, but engineer 
and fireman lost their lives. 

When they brought the mangled 
body of the fireman home, C look- 
ing into the casket with streaming 



A Word for Christ. 



eyes thanked God for guiding him to 

speak a word which saved a soul. 

Charles C. Pierce, 
Of Christian Endeavor Society, 

First Baptist Church, 

Oneonta, N. Y. 
Feb. 19, 1896. 



ANSWERS OF PRAYER. 

It was at the beginning of a session 
of the Sunday school of which I 
was superintendent a few years since, 
that word came from a messenger of 
the near approach of death to one of 
the scholars that I loved very. much. 
She was a sweet little girl, bright 
and sunny, and was particularly gifted 
in recitation. Many times she had 
thrilled our hearts with her verses. 
It scarcely seemed possible that Ida 



Answers of Prayer, 



was so near leaving us. With the 
message came the request for prayers ; 
that God would spare her to that 
home where she was loved so dearly. 
Afterward I learned the physician had 
just left the house, and said : "It is 
of no use to do anything further ; we 
have done all that medicines can do, 
she will live at the most only a few 
hours." It was a case of Bright's dis- 
ease, so deadly in its effects, and so 
sure in its results. 

The mind was dulled for a moment, 
but quickly responded to the thought 
of the power of God in such an ex- 
tremity. After the opening exercises 
a statement of the case was made to 



Answers of Prayer. 



the school, and the request made for 
all to pray. The child was known to 
nearly every one in the room, and 
there must have been a large volume 
of prayer that went in those moments 
to the Throne. I was particularly im- 
pressed, as I prayed, to believe my 
prayer and the prayers of the school, 
were certainly carried by angel bands 
to the mercy seat, for at that very 
time a change came in the sufferer. 
The face brightened, returning power 
was seen, and the feeble body seemed 
renewed by God Himself. If she did 
not literally rise up and walk she was 
restored to health, and was soon in 



A nswers of Prayer. 



her place in the school, and lives to- 
day a mark of God's mercy. 

Walter I. Southerton, 
Of Christian Endeavor Society, 
Baptist Temple, 
Brooklyn, 
March 4, 1896. 



GUIDED THROUGH A CLOUD. 

" I would ye should understand, brethren, that 
the things which happened unto me have fallen 
out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel." 

Phil. I : 12. 

I was in a hospital in Madras, India. 
One short year had been spent in the 
land of my adoption, among the people 
of my love, my people. Now the 
deadly fever had me in its toils, and 
the physicians had agreed, "You must 
go home. It is the only hope of pro- 
longing your life." 

Go home ? Was not this my home ? 



Guided Through a Cloud. 

Prolonging my life? That was not 
what I sought. I had rather a thou- 
sand-fold work out my little day in 
India, however brief, and die among 
my people, at my post, than live the 
longest life in America. 

But finally when He had quieted my 
heart to talk it all over with Him, He 
plainly showed me that my life was 
not my own, and that I dared not 
sacrifice what belonged to Him, unless 
He required it. Then I said, "Thy 
will is always sweet. I will go." 
And from the prison-house of my 
affliction, still groaning beneath the 
cruel bonds of blighted hopes, defeated 
purposes, frustrated life-ambitions, I 



Guided Through a Cloud. 

was able to appropriate the message 
of Paul to his Philippian brethren. 

Its fulfilment only waited my land- 
ing in America. In the mail awaiting 
me was a letter from Mrs. L. D. 
Osborn, Principal of the Union Mis- 
sionary Training Institute of Brooklyn, 
urging me to take her place in the 
school, for she was ill and must relin- 
quish the work, and saying there was 
no one else whom she believed to be 
so qualified of God. Then I knew 
why the call home. Verily it was for 
the furtherence of the Gospel. Thus 
from the field of my own individual 
efforts for India's evangelization I was 
led to the sphere of multiplying my- 



Guided Through a Cloud. 

self in the training of the many who 

are now scattering to earth's ends. 

Hester Alway. 

Baptist Young Peoples' Union, 

Washington Ave. Bap. Ch. 

Brooklyn, N. Y. 
April 6, 1896. 



SYMPATHY IN THE STORM. 

The following incident is not more 
remarkable than many experienced 
by a multitude of persons engaged in 
Christian work : and that the writer 
has experienced in a variety of ways. 
But it is a marked illustration of the 
effectiveness of a word in time. 

At eight o'clock in the evening of 
a blustering February day, in 1894, I 
was in a gentleman's furnishing store 
on Fulton Street, Brooklyn, convers- 
ing with the proprietor. A man about 



Sympathy in the Storm. 



thirty-five years of age came in the 
store and asked the proprietor if he 
would give him sufficient change to 
pay for a night's lodging. He said 
he had eaten nothing since morning, 
and felt ill. He was evidently some- 
what under the influence of liquor, 
but not drunken. The proprietor re- 
fused to help him. I turned to him 
and said, "If I give you sufficient 
amount of money for supper and a 
lodging, will you promise me on your 
honor that you will not spend any of 
it for liquor?" I then took his hand 
and said, " I sympathize with you in 
your trial ; you are comparatively a 
young man and if you will resolve by 



Sympathy in the Storm. 

God's help you can conquer this habit ; 
but you will have a battle before you, 
and must exercise all the courage and 
decision you can summon. I shall 
trust your honor in helping you. Will 
you ask God to help you? Do you 
truly promise me that you will do 
your best to keep your word now ; 
this may be a turning-point in your 
life/' He said, "Before God I prom- 
ise you." I gave him sufficient 
amount of money for the purpose, 
and said, "Will you call at my house 
to-morrow at nine o'clock and tell me 
if you have kept your word, and I 
will see about further help." The 
next morning he was at my house at 



Sympathy in the Storm, 

the time appointed ; his face was all 
aglow with good cheer. He said, 
" After I received the money, my 
thirst came on me, and I fought it off. 
I never touched a drop ; I feel so en- 
couraged, for I have won a battle, and 
am determined to be a man/' In a 
word, he reformed, soon confessed 
conversion to Christ, and obtained a 
position in business and, when fully 
established in strength, wrote me that 
the words and deeds of cheer in the 
store, by God's grace, had saved him. 



Arthur Clark, 



Y. M. C. A. of Brooklyn, 
March 4, 1897. 



THE GIFT AND THE GIVER. 

For some time — after opening the 
Door of Hope for those so laid upon 
my heart to rescue, — while praying for 
the needs of the work, the $15,000 
mortgage resting upon the property 
would often come to mind. For lack 
of faith, however, it was generally not 
dwelt upon and though the semi-yearly 
interest due upon it was always grant- 
ed in answer to prayer, the amount it- 
self was not really committed to God 
for removal as it should have been. 



The Gift and the Giver. 

Last summer, most unexpectedly, 
the inconsistency of this presented 
itself to me, and a burden of prayer 
seemed pressing upon my heart, con- 
cerning- the matter ; finally, after much 
waiting before the Lord, I could not 
but feel it would be more pleasing to 
Him to have this wiped out, and there- 
fore asked for sufficient faith to believe 
for its removal, before the time it would 
have to be renewed. This was grant- 
ed ; and, with thanksgiving and praise 
I took the necessary amount most def- 
initely when thus engaged in prayer. 

At first, I was tempted quietly to be 
still and see if this expectation would 
be met, but instantly upon reflection 



The Gift and the Giver. 

came the suggestion that that was 
sigh/, not faith : for "Faith was the 
substance of things hoped for, and the 
evidence of things not seen/' (Heb. 
ii : i). therefore such proceedings 
would not glorify God if I truly be- 
lieved. Nor can I feel to this day that 
it would have been honoring Him to 
have proclaimed this Faith-Gift of 
money abroad, as it would necessarily 
have assumed a form of an appeal to 
those who listened and sooner or later 
possibly induced many to contribute 
towards its liquidation. Besides, it 
would have been acknowledging a 
need which existed, in a most forcible 
manner, and, from the opening of the 



The Gift and the Giver, 

Home God has never permitted me any 
freedom to obtain funds in this way. 
I would truly rather trust for every re- 
quirement connected with the home, 
than to have our wants supplied 
through the usual methods of solicita- 
tions, as personally it has taught me 
more of the reality and readiness of 
God in answering believing prayer 
than anything in my Christian experi- 
ence before. I felt directed to talk 
over the subject of the debt with two 
intimate friends, knowing well that the 
confidence thus entrusted would never 
be misunderstood nor misplaced — 
often making the assertion in a some- 
what positive w T ay, that the mortgage 



The Gift and the Giver. 

would never have to be resumed after 
the following" June ; for a moment or 
so they regarded me with concern. 
Reading their looks, particularly as 
one of them went on to say quite 
gravely, that "it was quite a large 
sum, and perhaps I did not fully real- 
ize the amount and the shortness of 
the time before it would expire." 

Resting in God I quickly responded : 
"Well, you will see when we meet 
next summer, every cent will be can- 
celled," though I had not the faintest 
idea where a dollar of it was coming 
from. No sooner had these words 
been uttered than the conscious sense 
of having pleased God gave me such 



The Gift and the Giver. 

a delightful rest and assurance that 
He would deliver. 

Within the past two weeks this claim 
was again upheld privately in prayer 
and praise in my own room, and one 
day (Jan. 13), a dear friend asked me 
to grant her a little time, as she had 
some most important matters to talk 
over with me. I had not the faintest 
idea what she intended talking about 
until she explained it was in connec- 
tion with the Door of Hope. 

Being seated, my surprise was great 
when she questioned me concerning 
the mortgage, and said she wished to 
know the exact amount. On answer- 
ing, immediately an unexplainable 



The Gift and the Giver. 

look crossed her beautiful countenance 
which caused my heart to give a big 
throb of joy, and the thought flashed 
through my mind that possibly she 
was going to give me a thousand dol- 
lars towards it. I therefore was by no 
means prepared for the next remark, 
which was : "I have talked this matter 
over with no one, therefore am only 
influenced by God, and I believe He 
would have me on one condition, that 
my name be withheld, just sit down 
now and draw you a check for Si 5,000, 
to wipe it out forever.''' 

The feelings of gratitude, first to 
God and then to the noble-hearted 
donor, can never be expressed, for it 



The Gift and the Giver. 

meant so much to me of my Lord. 
Not one dollar of it had been solicited. 
" simply prompted/' as she informed 
me, by the Holy Spirit when in prayer ; 
and, in being made willing to do this, 
she was glad to so hide behind the 
" Master '" in the gift, that He might 
receive the praise and be seen alone 
through it all. Dear reader, will you 
not take your burden in prayer and 
faith to Jesus? Just insist on an an- 
swer. 

Mrs. E. M, Whittemore, 
Door of Hope, 

New York, 



